rescue911fandomcom-20200213-history
Sister Save
Location: Dallas, Texas Date: November 29, 1989 Story On November 29, 1989, David and Cynthia Cargill left their two daughters, eight-year-old Kate and six-year-old Erin, in the care of a babysitter overnight for the first time. But they had no reason to be worried on that quiet night in Dallas, Texas. David told the girls to be good and be in bed by 8:00. Then he kissed them good night, said that he loved them, and left. "That evening we asked the sitter to stay that night because my husband always plays basketball on Wednesday nights, and that particular night he had to go to work early. We knew he wasn't going to be home that evening and I was out of town on business that evening, so we had to have a sitter. It was difficult for me as far as doing that," said Cynthia. She was apprehensive about leaving her children in the care of someone else. Kate, Erin, and the babysitter watched TV for a while. Around 8pm, the babysitter had the girls get ready for bed. "Kate and Erin were sleeping in the same room together, which was normally Erin's room, but since the babysitter was staying that night, she was going to sleep in Kate's room," said Cynthia. The babysitter put the girls to bed, tucked them in, and apparently shut their bedroom door so she wouldn't disturb them because she wanted to stay up and watch television. Later that night, a fire broke out in the den. The Cargills had checked their smoke alarm just two weeks before, but on that night, it didn't work. The fire got so big that it blasted the windows, breaking them and triggering the burglar alarm, awakening the babysitter. She got off the couch, ran to the den, and screamed, "Oh, my God!" at the sight of the fire. She then screamed the girls' names, and Kate, hearing the alarm go off, got out of bed, saw smoke coming in through the door, and touched the handle, which was hot. She yelled at Erin to wake up, crawled beneath the smoke to the window, and tried breaking it with her hand, but she couldn't. She screamed as loud as she could for help. A passerby noticed the blaze and ran to a nearby house where he woke Dwight Bookout. "We heard a pounding on the door, and by this time the smell was overwhelming. The fire was rapidly getting out of control." Dwight called Gay Patrick and asked her to call 911 and get assistance as quickly as possible. He knew the girls were in the house and his immediate concern was, "My God, where are the children?!" Gay's call for help came in at 12:54am. "I thought, 'How could this be happening?' It didn't seem like it was real; I thought I was having a bad dream," said Gay. "It was one of those things where you hope for a miracle". Emergency units from the Dallas Fire Department were immediately dispatched. Fire investigator Tom Owen was also sent to the scene. "Anytime you have a fire in the house, children will intend to hide from it," he recalled. Meanwhile, Kate knew she needed something hard to break the window in order to get out, which she learned in school. She found a nearby chair, grabbed it, and used it to break the window. But the screen kept her and Erin trapped inside. The babysitter heard Kate's cries for help, took off the screen, and got her out. They then ran to the middle of the yard, but Erin was missing. Kate ran back to the window to get her, and by the time she climbed out, the entire house was in flames. The fire trucks were at the scene within seven minutes, lead by captain Bill Crawford. "By the time we'd gotten to the house, it was fully burning," he remembered. "The glass had exploded in the front part of the house, and there were flames everywhere. It's a miracle that the sisters escaped from their home, and if this young girl had never followed the presence of mind to follow the instructions she had learned, then they wouldn't have made it." The girls and the babysitter could only watch the house being destroyed by the fire in terror and sadness. Later, David and Cynthia were called by the police to rush home as quickly as possible. "Kate was able to do the right thing, and that was just fine," continued Owen. "She didn't have to go back in to get her sister, which worked out great in this case. However, this is not the normal situation; once you're out of a burning building, stay out and don't go back in. People that go back into burning buildings usually can't escape alive." "It was such a close call," explained Cynthia. "We're talking about if it was delayed anymore, or had Katherine opened the bedroom door, they would have been killed immediately." The Cargills went to the site of their burned-down house and looked at it. Cynthia remarks that the heat was so intense that the glass in the oven door had melted. David found some of Kate's schoolwork among the ashes. "The fire training that the children had was quite in depth. By us instilling in Kate and Erin what needs to happen to get themselves out of the fire, it saved their lives. I just can't say enough about fire education, as far as in the schools and what the fire department does," he explained. "The thought of losing the children is still quite frightening to us. It's something I'll think about for quite a long time." Investigators determined that the fire was caused by faulty wiring in the den. Three months later, the Cargills began putting the pieces of their life back together and tried to erase the memory of that near tragic night. "We lost everything and it sounds kind of corny, but you realize that life is short. It makes you just really take time to enjoy life because it could be over in a matter of seconds," said Cynthia. Although Kate received awards for her heroism, she values most of the praise from her peers. She read letters from those who saw her picture in the newspaper. "Every once in a while, I'll take a deep breath and just realize how close we came to losing our children; that makes all the difference in the world because nothing else really matters," said Cynthia. Kate really was a hero. Category:1989 Category:Texas Category:Fires Category:Kid Heroes